The Non Prodigal Son Returns
by jane's membrane
Summary: A look into a chapter of Chase's life preHouse. Written in the POV of Chase and an original character.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Non-Prodigal Son Returns Part 1

**Disclaimer:** Mr. David Shore, Mr. Bryan Singer and FOX Brodcasting Company, you guys already own House, Wilson, Cuddy, Cameron, Chase and Foreman. Isn't that enough? Do you have to sue me for borrowing them for a little while? If you decide to sue, then you are just plain old meanies who will get nothing from me since I'm poor. If not, then I love you guys forever. Well not so much FOX since they cancelled Kitchen Confidential. But I do love you for giving us House.

Being smart is not all what it's cracked up to be. One would think that your smarts, when used to achieve academic excellence, would buy you some slack from your parents and you could then go on to attend all the parties you want. I imagine that actually does happen in some households. Unfortunately my household is ruled by over-achieving parents who want to raise over-achieving children which is the reason why I am sitting in another college course class in the nearby Uni instead of enjoying myself in the biggest back to school party ever thrown.

Ten minutes into the class with still no professor in sight, I glanced around the room to see who else are with me. The only advantage about taking college courses that I can think of is that I have the opportunity to meet older guys. That, however, is quickly squelched when I realized that male population of the class is composed of either high school geeks, who are also taking this class for the same reason my parents force me to take this class, or significantly older men who are probably doing the night college thing now since they didn't have the opportunity to do the regular college thing when they were younger. I figured the regular and cute older boys are taking this class during regular hours which is unfortunate for me, of course, since I won't be meeting any acceptable older men in this already dreary situation.

Ok, wait. Hold on. There's still a guy I missed. His longish blonde hair led me to believe that he's a girl when in fact he is otherwise. A very cute otherwise. He's not the older guy type that I was looking for but he'll more than certainly do.

I leave my seat for another one closer to his to get a better look at him. He looks familiar to me somehow but I can't place where I've seen him before which is a surprise to me since I make it a point to remember the cute boys I meet. He shifted a little and his blonde hair fell further to the nape of his neck, giving me a better view of his face and it is then I realize who he is.

The kids from school call him Roo, short for Kangaroo since he started school at an early age and still managed to skip a grade twice back in primary school. Some of the neighborhood kids call him Pope because he's currently attending a seminary school. He had other nicknames attached to him at one time or another. But those two are the ones the stuck to him up until now.

His father is said to be the most sought after doctor of a certain field and has been flown around the world by his more prominent foreign patients that include members of the royal family of different countries. His mother is nothing to sneeze at either. As the premier opera singer of Australia, she is a well known figure in the Elite Circle. Her engagements are usually a gathering of the who's who and are always sold out in advance. His house is the site of many grand parties that our parents would talk about from days on end. For though big parties are not uncommon in our wealthy community, theirs just seem more glamorous, with his mother's golden voice delicately floating beyond the perimeter of their property, giving the nearby homes a free concert.

Most people would expect him to be your typical rich kid. Spoiled, care free, arrogant and flashy. You can't really blame them for having this notion since most of the kids like us are like that. I admit that those adjectives have been associated to me on more than one occasion. But not him. Not to the extent of my knowledge anyway.

The biggest testament to that is his decision to attend a Jesuit seminary school after we finished primary school. Well it's not really a seminary school but it might as well be. It's a seminary preparatory school where the mandatory high school curriculum is taught along with extensive theology classes. Most of its graduates do go on to the Seminary to become priests.

A lot of people were quite shocked with that development. I don't think there has ever been a kid in the community who has ever thought of becoming a priest, much less actually enrolling in a seminary school. Living the way we do, the thought of taking a vow of poverty willingly is most distressing. As his peers bemoaned his future impoverished state, his teachers sighed and moaned at the prospect of having one of their top students not fulfill what they deemed to be his full potential, muttering words like 'What a waste' under their breaths when they see him pass by. Needless to say if we were disappointed, his folks must have been upset tenfold. Rumor has it that his father stormed out of the house when the announcement was made. Personally I thought it was extremely funny that little twelve year old Roo-bert Chase could cause such a significant fuss with wanting to be priest that it almost rivaled the buzz caused by Christopher Jensen, the former Football Captain of the high school team, when he came out to his parents during the annual cotillion a few years back.

He became a sort of legend after that. A living myth if you will. A story that is passed on to the younger generation who would not believe that such a person actually exists in our midst. With Robert sequestered in the seminary school for almost three years now, the story tellers could not point him out and prove that he does, in fact, exist and that they are not pulling anybody's chain.

I wonder what he is doing here. Well the reason is quite obvious; he's here to take this class. So the question is probably how. How is it possible that he would be attending this class when the last time I heard, students from the seminary school are only allowed to go outside once a month and are not allowed to take classes outside. Probably doesn't matter right now. The important thing is that he is here.

He sure grew up to be quite a looker. Not a surprise really, he was cute even back then. The reason no girl from our grade ever thought about taking him on was, for the most part, because of his age. No fourteen year old girl would date a twelve year old kid. Then of course there's the obstacle of actually getting close to him.

In contrast to his parents' extrovert personalities, Robert was painfully shy. I remember that he rarely spoke in class, uttering only the correct answer when asked a question during recitation. He spoke even less outside of class. And when he did speak, his comments were usually off, like he didn't know the right thing to say and so he said the first thing that came to his head.

He also constantly fidgeted, a behavior that most of our teachers back in the day attributed to him being nervous. To us, we considered him to be just plain antsy and weird. As a very forgetful girl, I used to leave one or two items on my desk and would need to go back to the classroom to get them. It was during these trips that I would sometimes witness a teacher or two ask Robert if he was okay or if he had a problem that he needs to talk to somebody about. Robert always answered that he's fine. After the initial wave of concern was given to him, I noticed that he appeared to have taken steps to lessen his fidgeting. From getting up and sharpening his already sharp pencils, he moved on to a less obvious behavior which is biting his pencils. A few weeks later we learned that his parents have formally filed for separation.

The only time he looked like he is comfortable in his own skin was when he's taking a test or singing with the church choir, for though he didn't inherit his parents' social graces; he certainly inherited their most valuable gifts. Well that and his mother's looks too I suppose.

I must admit that the only reason I continued to attend Sunday Mass back then was so I could see him and hear him sing, which he does so only every other week since he alternated being in the choir and performing his duties as an altar boy. Just because I would die of embarrassment if I were caught dating him, it didn't mean that I couldn't ogle him. And ogle him, I did. It was the closest I got to having a religious experience while attending mass.

It sounds perverted, I know. But in my defense I was a teenager with raging hormones and he was the epitome of an angel, with his blonde looks, white robes and heavenly voice. Come to think of it, I still am a teenager with raging hormones while he still looks very much like an angel. And my raging hormones are telling me that I should take the empty seat beside him and get the two of us acquainted with each other again. With the professor still M.I.A., making a new friend is not a bad way to pass the time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** The Non-Prodigal Son Returns Part 2

**Disclaimer:** Mr. David Shore, Mr. Bryan Singer and FOX Brodcasting Company, you guys already own House, Wilson, Cuddy, Cameron, Chase and Foreman. Isn't that enough? Do you have to sue me for borrowing them for a little while? If you decide to sue, then you are just plain old meanies who will get nothing from me since I'm poor. If not, then I love you guys forever. Well not so much FOX since they cancelled Kitchen Confidential. But I do love you for giving us House.

I breathed in the cool evening air as I hang my head outside the car window and gazed out into the passing scenery. I didn't realize that I would miss seeing clusters of buildings until I no longer saw them on a daily basis. Though I have to admit that the strobing lights from the different store signs and the sounds of honking cars with the general hum of the milling population out and about in the streets came as a bit of a shock. After a couple of years living in a semi-secluded area where only the rhythmic prayers of the pious and eerie hoots and howls of the local wildlife break the pervailing silence that reigns, experiencing such sensory stimulation is a bit overwhelming for me. I can't help but swivel my head from side to side to view everything I could before they disappear from my line of sight as the car swiftly navigates around other vehicles with careless abandon.

The car is owned and being driven by Julia Fitzgerald, a fellow classmate in the Introduction to Advanced Chemistry course I somehow found myself enrolled in. She offered to give me a ride home when the class was informed that Proffessor Stein had just called in sick and would not be able to come to class.

Normally I would have refused. The lesson 'Stranger Danger' has been ingrained in me as a child and I see no point in not applying that lesson just because I'm no longer a little kid. But Julia is hardly what I could call a stranger. I may not have recognized her immediately when I came to class but I did when she came up to me and introduced herself. I mean, how could I forget the girl who always stuck her gum in my hair because she didn't like my haircut. A haircut that I am still sporting now. I half expected her to pull the same stunt again, seeing as she currently has gum in her mouth. Fortunately she seemed to be more interested in small talk as we waited for the professor rather than ruining my hair. But despite her earlier friendliness I was still surprised that she offered to take me home. Not that I wasn't grateful that she did. I was quite grateful.

At fifteen years of age, I am still not allowed to be licenced driver. Heck, I am not even a student driver. Driving is what you could call a low priority in seminary school, which is where I was studying until a week ago. So with me being unable to drive myself to the university where my class is, my mother has decided that she will drop me off at the Uni and drive back two hours later to fetch me when class is done. With the class called off for the night, I would be sans ride home for at least an hour and a half with nothing to do but to wait around until I am picked up. And even if the class was not called off, the idea of my mother picking me up did not sit well with me. Not because of any juvenile reason such as being embarassed that my mum still needs to drive me around. The fact that she had already consumed two glasses of gin and tonic before she drove me to the uni had me concerned. Catching a ride back home would certainly save my mum from the task of driving drunk.

"What are you doing?"

I jumped at the question and blushed madly when I turned and saw Julia giving me an amused yet inquiring look. I must have looked like those dogs that hang their head outside the window with their tongues flapping about. She's going to think I'm the strangest bloke she's ever met. That is if she isn't thinking that already.

"I'm sorry. It's just that I've been away for quite a long time and I'm just noticing that a lot of things have changed in the town." I gave her a sheepish smile and hoped she understood and not thinking about throwing me out of her car.

She must have read what I was thinking in my face because she gave me a big smile and said, "Hey no worries. I expect that seeing a lot more stores around here must be boggling to you. It's boggling to me too and I haven't left here like you have. I mean, who would have thought the those high-end boutique store owners would actually catch on that instead of having their customers come to them, they should come to their customers instead."

I nod and smiled, looking every bit like I understood what she is talking about when I really didn't. I didn't really notice if there were more stores around. I suppose there are because there sure seemed to be a lot more buildings and flashing signs than I remember from before. I couldn't really say if they were, as Julia put it, high-end stores since I really didn't know about stores all that much. I've never been particularly interested in shopping although I believe that comes from being male but then again my fellow male classmates, even the ones from the Jesuit school, knew enough about brand name stores that I'm tagged as abnormal for not having that knowledge. It wasn't that I was really unaware. I've always worn certain kinds of clothes and had certain kinds of things growing up that having them wasn't a big deal. They were just clothes to me. I didn't say that to them because I knew that would just be a mark against me. We were training to become priests, not saints. My classmates there were not really above resenting me for being a rich kid, a fact that I have taken for granted in primary school where everybody else has, more or less, the same financial situation.

A sharp turn and several dangerous swerves around other speeding cars dragged me away from my thoughts and back to the present. I looked around and saw that we were near my house but the turn that we just took was not really in the right direction. I waited for Julia to straighten out the car after just barely missing a crossing man, who let out a stream of expletives at us, before pointing out this out to her. "Julia. Julia, I think you're heading the wrong way. I live over at Covington, we're almost at Dover." The streets here are arranged in alphabetical order which is very helpful if you're lost.

"I know. I know. But there's a back to school party at Essex. It's going to be the biggest bash ever and I have to be there or my social calendar will be empty for the rest of the year." Her eyes glistened with excitement and anticipation as she glanced at her reflection in the rearview mirror to check her make up.

Now I'm not quite sure if she was just blatantly ignoring my point or if she forgot that she promised to take me home. Which ever it is, given her current state, I thought it best to no longer impose on her good graces and offer a solution to our predicament. "Uhm ok. I suppose you can drop me off here." I looked around the well lit street and calculated how far a walk I would be taking to get home.

"Drop off? What do you mean?" she asked, absolutely bewildered at my suggestion.

"Well, as I've said, my house is over there," I said, pointing to the general direction behind us. "And you're going there," I continued, this time pointing to the general direction in front of us. "So dropping me off here would be good. It's not all that far away from Covington." I smiled at her to show that I didn't mind being dropped off which I really didn't. In fact, taking a walk would give me the time I need to steel myself to the drunken vision of my mother that I am sure I will find when I enter the door.

"Don't be silly. You're coming with me," she said it in such a tone that brook no argument and for a moment I didn't. Going to a party, meeting kids my age and doing normal teenage stuff would be nice. Ok, I probably would feel awkward and out of place but that sounds infinitely better than coming home and half-dragging half-carrying my mum to the shower to clean her up before putting her to bed, kissing her lips with a soft smile while trying my best not to grimace at the stench of alchohol in her breath. But I knew I couldn't go.

The reason I left the Jesuits was so I could take care of mum. I've just learned that my father has, once and for all, stopped coming over to check up on her and, given her current state, I knew she shouldn't be left alone.

My father and I argued about it. He didn't like the idea of me becoming a priest but he didn't like the idea of me caring for my mother even more. But I would not be swayed from my decision. She's my mother and if he wasn't going to take care of her then I would. Besides, I've always thought that if he would see how affected I was by all of this, then he would get up from his arse and use his many connections to get her the help she needs. Needs that I cannot even begin to understand much less help with. But so far all he has done is promise to keep giving my mum and I financial support if I promise to attend some classes in the nearby university. It's not really the help I wanted from him but I'll take what I could get at this point since mum couldn't be bothered to pay the bills when she could use the money that she has to buy more booze and I don't have any access to her bank accounts or to my trust fund to withdraw money to pay the bills.

"Julia, thanks for the offer, but I really need to be getting home." I smiled apologetically at her and hope she doesn't ask me why.

"Spoil sport," she teasingly replied as she, suprisingly, smoothly eased the car to the side of the road. "Are you sure you don't want to go THE party of the year?"

Yes. No. Yes. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Alright then mate. But if you don't attend, you'll be missing half of your life. Don't say I didn't warn you." Julia said as she opened her glove compartment and took out a pen. A moment later she took my right hand and proceeded to write in it. "Here's my number. Call me, ok." She then ran her hand against my thigh and gave me a long and wet kiss on the lips. Before I could say anything she had pushed me out the car and was speeding into the night.

As I watched the tail lights of Julia's car slowly disappear, I touched my lips and felt the heat rising up my body. It sure is different out here in the real world, outside the calm and peace that I had gotten used to in the Jesuit school. I didn't expect things to be all that pleasant considering the circumstances of my return. I've accepted that. But it is only now that I wish that my mother would get better soon for a selfish reason. I wish that she would get better so that I can go back to becoming someone I haven't been for so long. Someone normal.


End file.
